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tv   Today in Washington  CSPAN  February 12, 2013 6:00am-9:00am EST

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>> and so in florida they go zero-tolerance but in essence they turn on its head. so if they said is the same thing that they've done in colorado, it has to law and so they pulled all the districts in those states to change the way you do discipline. and the state of maryland, and interview, you already know this, the state school board
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okay, the state school board did this and oppose regulations on all-district in the state of maryland to do the same thing. what did they do? no more misdemeanors can be referred to law enforcement. now to have to be addressed at the school. changing the philosophy. we do not want to exclude students from school environment. we want to keep them there. we understand all student are not perfect. we want to take you where you are and we're going to work with you. that's a basic fundamental shift in philosophy on how to deal with this behavior in school. and so these three things are perfect examples of what you can do in your own states if you want to take that the. then finally, i want to touch on some of you may have heard of the judge from clayton county, georgia. he's developed a model of collaboration grenadian juvenile courts, the school, the police, and the county social service agency and the county mental health.
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in essence what they've done is develop a protocol that requires all misdemeanors to be dealt with at school. no more referrals to the juvenile court for misdemeanors. on the first occurrence and on the second occurrence. the first occurrence is a warning. the second occurrence, you were referred to a panel that has community service providers in the county mental health and county social service agency, and you and your family history student, your family needs help, connected with the court's deputy with the underlying problems that may be causing the disruptive behavior. as opposed to just send you to the school to prison pipeline. they have incredible results. they reduce referrals to student course by 67%. they reduce racial disparities on those referrals to juvenile court by 43%. and importantly they have increased graduation rates by 20%. so that gives you a sense that the whole thing about -- is a
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lie. that transport is not making schools safer, it does help students learn, it's doing the opposite. this is proof that if you go back to the rehabilitative model, we can actually do better for our students and have better outcomes, higher graduation rates, less arrests. and so with that i will stop, anticipate your questions. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank mr. harris for the stimulating conversation, and we certainly will pick back up on many of the policy recommendations that flow from implicit bias, and then the attempt to consciously overturn the philosophical architecture and the logic of why those public policies are in place. i want to now introduce doctor
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tracie keesee. she will discuss the consortium for police leadership in equities research on racial profiling, and the use of deadly force along with how the unconscious bias leads to discrimination and critical incidents with respect to black and brown males. she will also discuss the groundbreaking research that is been done with police officers, understand how effective training can override prejudic prejudices, and that that can lead to fewer deadly force incidents that we've seen populate our culture far too often. dr. keesee is a native of denver, colorado, and the 24 year veteran with the denver police department. she's currently the deputy director of the colorado information analysis center and is cofounder and executive director of operations for the consortium for police leadership
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and equity. previously, she was division chief of research training and technology, patrol three districts, patrol districts three and five as commander, crimes against person. so a lot of on the ground experience, and the public information officer for the internal affairs bureau, police training academy, gang bureau, commander of information technologies the unit. she holds a ba in political science from metropolitan state college, an m.a. in criminal justice from the university of colorado at denver, and a ph.d from the university of denver and intercultural communications. she's a graduate of the 203rd class of the fbi national academy, in the 1994 class of the african-american leadership institute. so we welcome her with her
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wealth of experience and insight to the podium. dr. keesee. [applause] >> good morning. >> good morning. >> i stand before you as my grandmother and my father and my mother want me to tell you a credential lack woman because i spent hundreds of thousands of hours in a corner staring at a white wall in a reflective state about something they think i did, something i did do, and you look like you going to do it. [laughter] that was my grandmother. how do you look like you going to do something? but it worked, so i can tell you that. i share with you that i wear two hats. and thank you for that introduction. i wear two hats. i'm a veteran of the denver police department. i am at the rank of captain. i am the cofounder of the consortium police leadership and equity a long with -- and most
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of the work that we've been talking about today is based on the work that he and jennifer been doing on. so i've had the task and i would say the love of trying to reform my police family. it's a long road, a long haul. it's a lot of drama, and a lot of what you see up there, and that is winning. talk about diversity. we bring something special to certain things. i don't want to disparage a with my brothers that we bring something. we are going to talk about who are we. we are a group of researchers and police chiefs, and what we are talking about is accountability and transparency and policing and all those things lead to legitimacy and to the fair practices in policing. and i think all of us in this room and i always this question of, how many of you have been stopped by the police?
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[inaudible] our users with a question? keep your hands up. how many have been stopped by the police? is there some and have not had that contact? keep your arms up. you had church this morning. now this is your exercise. how many of you in your contact with the police, it was okay? you didn't feel too bad about it. put your hand down if you didn't feel too bad about it. and [inaudible] >> exactly. it was okay. and how many of you had a bad experience? how many of you have had multiple experiences? even more hands go up. i'll keep that in mind. so when we talk about how do we deal with that an individual officers who have contact with the committee and with an everlasting to everlasting impression on you, and with some of that could also take your life, how do you then begin to
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unpack that and put it back together and bringing the best and the brightest who understand how to talk, to communicate and do the job in which we all swore to do? i raised my hand and took an oath. so we look at four areas in which community members and police, they are just the top four. there's many more but to me these are the ones that are urgent. racial profiling and police use of force, and we treat those as one. we don't separate those because they give a bad traffic stop we all know what that can lead to. so we keep those together. we look at them separately but we address them as one. immigration policy enforcement. over the last couple years has been huge issue, especially in wanting to make police officers immigration officers. a problem with it. we've been dealing with it. organizational equity, and wanted to officers and other executives when we have this conversation isn't there something wrong in the house, it's reflected out of the house.
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so my attitude about how we treat you is condone internally it's going to show external. so that's a leadership issue as well. we talk about that. we talk about juvenile justice and we talk about the school to prison pipeline. when i was in school there were no police officers and school. what i said was my mother and father walking through that school. and i don't know how he got away from that. so just a little brief because i want to get in some of the research that we've done. you have a folder on your chair. in all of the research measures are in the for you to take and for you to refer to if you want to get on this conversation when you get a. so make sure you have that. the participating agency, if you don't see your state or your police department represent a. no, don't think something is wrong. these are what we call the pioneers. achieves a stepped up and said we're willing to open up our organizations and begin the conversation about race. you know in a police
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organization it's a very difficult thing to do. those brave chiefs had a tremendous amount of pushback in doing so. i always tell them, you are brave but it takes bravery to kind of like mark that path. these are the participating agencies on the left, including international. then our funding sources are on the right. the one thing about it is we do not take money. we do our research for free to those organizatorganizat ions and to those police departments because of our funding sources. we are always very proud of that. when you buy research you can make it say whatever you want. so we were very adamant about not doing that. that worked out force. then, of course, it is house in los angeles. so let's talk about an implicit bias in research. because that's one of the things that as a young grad student i was very interested in. i stood on the street for her longtime and it worked on the street and worked in gang unit.
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what i thought was very interesting to me is that my response was always different to my counterparts response was. and the counterpart always did not look like me. so typically any large police organizations to the all white male and typically the females are very small percentage, or at all. my parents were not thrilled about my career choice, and i just told him that's what happened when i was in the corner reflecting. i look like i wanted to be a police officer. [laughter] so when we make these decisions we don't do them lightly. i can tell you the conversations i had with my parents and my grandparents were those of the reflected memories of growing up in the south. they were not comfortable with me doing it. they were afraid for me and i couldn't make the connections of why. and so with those experiences we begin thing to take a look at how do we begin to change the
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culture and how do we begin to select officers who can come in and do what all communities want us to do, and that's to keep them safe, not make you afraid of me at the tpc. let's talk about the first one. the second one was mentioned earlier by one of my fellow panelist and i want to talk about for some. let's talk about deputizing discrimination. this particular research study we did was for salt lake city, police chief burbank called us so bravely. he had built up in his house that was getting ready to pass, like most of us did, wanting to deputize his police officers and to make them immigration officers. and, of course, a lot of the language was pretty much you just don't stop anybody ask for their credentials and really say to you belong here. so most of us in law enforcement, we knew what that was going to do. you already don't trust us. let's do one more layer on top of that. so he had some grave concerns. and so what we did is one of the
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issues he had, all of his lawmakers were saying hey, if you do this, you will reduce crime because the association of crime and people of color was the only reason they're over here is to take our jobs, you're a member the arguments. when they bring their criminality into the system. so remember those conversations and to reflect back and say that sounds familiar, doesn't it? sounds very familiar. and the one of the things that he did was the cple went into the committee and with officers and we surveyed the a lot of times you could just ask. ask. people will be honest. they will be honest. and so what we did is we did a survey and we surveyed police officers. the breakdown is there as far as the in your pockets. we also did community members. the key was the cple is just have a a community voice. i can't just listen to what chiefs want and say this is kind of how we want to fashion our research.
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what does the community won't? we serve the community. the community is very involved with what this expectation, those outcomes and those research questions would be. so in doing so we went ahead and we did our survey and one of the things i want to point out to you is not only do we do community members we did undocumented community members. that means where the interpreters, folks were sitting there, we paid people, and we would give them vouchers for them. we gave vouchers for others -- food and those types of things are important to anybody. and so we did that. and the results that we found with the data for the s.b. 81 was exactly what we all thought it would be. that one, the officers didn't want to do it. they said we have enough problems as seeing races. don't want to add to the. we just want to do our jobs. secondly, we know if we do something like this, the
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willingness to report crime is going to disappear. it's barely there as is, but with a community, a specific community it's going to be gone. they will not call the police if they think they will be deported. if you're a victim of domestic violence you're not going to pick up the phone and call for help if you think you, your children and your breadwinner are going to be deported. you will not do that. and probably more importantly when we surveyed the citizen, the citizens of the reason why they wouldn't call is because of that. we don't want to be responsible for deporting anybody. so they are all integrated. folks just want to live safely in the command. chief burbank to get up to fill and he fought back on what was going on. but he made it very clear, the salt lake city pd was not going to participate. and so we were able then to give him what he needed to sit down with lawmakers and say this is
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what the impact is going to be. and later he carried us back here to d.c. and he had the same conversation with major city chiefs. so that way we know the seed is planted and with the other chiefs talk to other chiefs and we start have this conversation about what really is the role of law enforcement. and we know that our long history in law enforcement and raise is a typical, deadly when. we don't want to continue down that path. there's been a lot of work on the. probably the one the cple is most known for is the officers decision to shoot, and where does implicit bias coming to play? inodes mentioned earlier, effectively this one was one of my graduate kind of thesis, for what into research, edison graduate student you're either going to get shot by her fellow police officers or citizens will come after you. so you hold your breath and you believe in your face and you take a chance. this is a question that our
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communities have had for years. the number one question in denver, this happened after course of events, another black male was killed by a white police officer, do you train your officers to kill young black, brown and? that's the question. is that what you do in the academy for six months, flash pictures and say, you see this face, shoot. and so, really had to answer the question so we could move on and then begin to start to move things around as far as recruiting and training and retention for a position. the study is in your pocket. it happens in denver, denver police department. one thing have to do with cops if you want them to participate is be honest, you have to treat them and you have to pay them. so we did that. one of the things that happened is we compared the community to police officers. one of the reasons why we did that is because we get our police officers from the commute at large.
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i was a citizen before he joined the police departments will want to make sure we make comparisons of who is coming into the department and to the have the same reflective case. what happens is you went in, there was a computer screen and read images of white males flashing before you dump some were armed, some were not. somebody weapon, some had cell phones, some had scissors. and enjoy the same series with black males. some had coke cans, some had weapons comes amid scissors, summit of the types of weapons and then had an urban setting for us. it was important denver urban settings. what would it is those areas in which i high number of officer shooting, take a picture of the same areas and would put them behind as a backup. there was nothing different. nothing was switched out. there was no different fighting. we did control for all of that. very quickly, what we learned was this. when it comes to pulling the trigger fast, all of us did it.
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whether you are black, white, latino, indigenous, male, female, police officer or citizens. so we drew out really quick, due out really fast. we were quick to display a weapon. where we were different was the actual decisions to pull the trigger. the officers were slower in making that decision, and the citizens were faster. and so when we talk about engaging both parts of the brain, one of the things that we had done prior to this test is where changed the training to slow the brain down, to focus on the situation, not the face, about the threat. and the threat is not the blackface or the brown face. it's whatever their holding in their hands. so with that, we went back to the firearms bureau, for those
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of you who may or may not do come you spend many hours and many months training with your firearm. and i had all of the targets removed from the firearms bureau because it took a study for me to realize the silhouette on the targets were black silhouette. we removed all of those targets, and we replaced the dark with actual faces of people. black, white, male, female. because if you're looking at a face, the first thing you would do is look at the face, and it happens in a matter of seconds, then focus on the weapon, then you can make that decision to shoot. and that's a we use, but we added something to those folks when we could put real pictures on, we put badges around their necks. why would we put badges around their necks? they shoot their own.
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absolute. and so we switched those back and forth but some will have badges, someone not. but the threat is the weapon, not the face, not the face. and it took a lot of if you don't think there was screaming going on when that happened, it took a lot but we knew that because of the study that we were onto something, and so we continue on with that. so we also continue on with the actual conversations of how does implicit bias work in law enforcement. and one of things that we did find out, that training might not increase the speed. we talked, i want to touch on this stereotyping and incongruent visual kind of mechanisms and something that is incongruent is for you to have a light -- the mind is now confused because of associated black faces with crime. and so when i get confused i have to stop and slow it down and then i think i might make a
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mistake. you will have other folks in law enforcement say that little space where you're trying to decide is what officers get killed but i'm not talking that hesitation. hesitation is typically accompanied with fear. i'm talking about the mind so quickly that if you train the mind to stop a look at the entire picture, that you will make most of the time it will make the right decision. so for us that is groundbreaking and we do know other agencies have followed ever steps to do that and we're very appreciative of that as well. one of the other things and a thing for most of you are legislators, and i forgot to tell you that i am from denver, colorado, and after november elections the mile high city took on a whole new meaning for us. [laughter] i heard it when i got here. everybody was joking. and i said okay, i'll take my hit for the. but i voted no. but apparently there's whole bunch of coloradans in the closet smoking that stuff last
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night i wasn't going to say it. so the contract -- is something as legislator of folks were involved in policymaking, you have it, i want you to take back with you. what we've done is we've put together an agenda for legitimacy for placing a for legitimacy for us means how do you do good police work and have the communities trust in what you do. in doing so one of the key things, there are three areas, methods for measuring racial profiling, immigration, policy enforcement and organizational in equity. i want to focus on the personal. this past june we were here in d.c., partnered with the department of justice and we brought in 10 minutes of police chiefs and researchers and we talked about this issue again ongoing of racial profiling. one of the things we know is this, researchers and as police officers is we have a lot of state that reflecting a lot of mandatory data.
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they have been doing so for almost 10 years. and for 10 years that data has been telling you that nothing is happening. do you believe that? do you believe that? yet you still are collecting information. is it to feel good about yourselves? so one of the things that is in there is a conversation about how do you effectively measure what's going on as far as racial profiling. sitting in databanks and having so much as looking at saic nothing here. we know that those things are not going to jump off the page at other folks english and other things with it. so when they're we have outlined a way to begin mission. one of the things we came up with in the conversations with the doj, the chiefs, although the information needs to be sent into one location and denise to be analyzed from a nationwide
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perspective. and that is not being done. went individual states, individual stories but we do not have a clear national picture of a what is really going on. and so that is something that we're urging that really needs to happen on top of going back on the immigration profiling bill. as for the law enforcement is concerned i stand before you, the new way for law enforcement to i am not alone in this so there is hope but i have about four more years and i am retiring. but this issue of implicit bias, you know, is one of the leading factors of discretionary decision-making when officers decide whether not the ticket you, whether or not they put you in jail, whether or not they take your children for me. whether or not they tell your car, and whether they just believe you. and so we work very diligently to make sure that when we bring on new officers that we trained them. and you have to understand a lot of the officers are very resistant to this.
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because part of implicit bias means you have to do some self reflection about what your role has been. and how we got to where you are today as policeman. and because of that you have a lot of chiefs who are resistant. because different if you're cheap and own organization he came up through the ranks, did you not? and typically when you start on the street, there's probably somebody in your organization that remembers what you did. and yet may have to stand before them as a chief as if you never did them. that's the dilemma. so with that said i will wrap it up, and so, you know, the trenton scholars that we have gamble again if he does your school, don't worry about that from your respective states, but however where the wide group of scholars, because it is a holistic approach. it is not one that is just a
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police and criminal justice issue. so with that i thank you, and my parents thank you as well. [applause] >> so i guess dr. keesee come you're a victim of fashion looking at those walls. that's another thing we've got to do what we do to ourselves. just take off on that, not to talk about our parents. we need more that but, you know, trayvon martin being victimized by george zimmerman and black people look at people with sagging pants in their own community. maybe if you lift their dreams their pants will follow. now, let's finish it by bringing in -- [applause] a brilliant presentation, and i do know i'm sitting that close to a cop. [laughter]
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i will be nervous when i sit back down. because my experiences in been good at all, right? i was -- stray from the underground. and i got a pc from a princeton and i got the same experience that most everybody else in this room got. and yet the bravery that she displays the wanted to go inside and that's a special brand of courage, and to operate within a special brand of courage. [applause] and to challenge that. and the irony, of course, is black folks are more, you know, and justice oriented if you did the crime, do the time oriented most deadly on earth. that's the irony. we just don't want them to come here, the robbers for the people who called us police for the robbers. right? or in her brilliant research,
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about its the weapon, not the person. you've got to ask what happens when police people think a wallet is a weapon. if it's a black person versus a non-black person and you get shot. so there's a lot of stuff a lot of stuff in the early research that we're going to take a. let's turn to another law enforcement agent on the right side, to your left, to my right, i'll be moving down here. sheriff jewell williams, shared and former pennsylvania state representative -- [cheers and applause] >> lock and load. [laughter] >> you got to arrest some of them people in the senate. i read some of these republicans. [laughter] we are not biased here. you can arrest some democrats, too.
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he brings a distinguished record of community activism to all that he does. he brought it to the house for 11 years where he served the 197th legislative district. he has worked tirelessly for more than 30 years on behalf of philadelphia residents. is genuine interest and concern for ordinary people than one of the hallmarks of his outstanding career. during the '70s, he spearheaded petition at the city of philadelphia to provide more affordable housing for the poor and face a little support as this it will struggle to find solutions for violent youth gangs. he took a bold step and founded the neighborhood advisory council, snatch, and served as its executive director under his leadership, snack founded a town watch program north so that the committee care coalition and various advocacy programs for youth and senior citizens. he graduated from the philadelphia police academy in
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86, joined a couple university police department will also also serving as universities committee liaison, and 94 accepted a position as chief of criminal operation for the office of philadelphia sheriff. in 2000, november he won his election to the pennsylvania house of representatives this are the 197th legislative district. there he introduced an important legislation for the action and advocacy of senior citizens and cosponsored many measures to improve the quality of life for all pennsylvanians. and here today, the sheriff will be speaking on the legislative and, the legislative -- and the importance of enforcing laws already in place to protect all citizens are passionate citizens from illegal arrests, search and seizure. we welcome sheriff jewell williams to the podium.
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[cheers and applause] >> thank you very much. we are on a federal reservation, so i can't arrest you. [laughter] but the to get anywhere near philadelphia -- [laughter] you are mine. 2009 was a very disheartening incident that happened to me. i was stopped by police. i was wearing my street clothes coming from the cleaners, driving about 50 feet away from my home as i begin to park i saw two police officers stopping these other people. i was alleged at the times i said to the police officers, i'm state represent jewell williams it is everything all right. of course, the police officer who was wide and had many complaints against me said to me, get the f. back in the car but i don't care who you are. and i said okay, let me see your
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supervisor. he pointed toward his supervisor and then he grabbed my arm, and he cuffed me and put me in the back of the police car. and as he was putting it back in the police car, he said i don't care who you are. i says okay, and he did not even frisk me. and i carry a gun. so we put in the back of the police car, and as he was driving me toward the police district, he said, i don't care who you politicians are, i don't like you got. and i was like sure, i think you're making a terrible mistake. and i think you're just making a terrible mistake, and he began to talk about politicians, taught by that we don't like working in the neighborhood. and again, i'm in my car with a gun. unser, i'm in the back of the police cruiser with a gun. so i get to the police district, which is in a neighborhood where i live, and he called the
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captain so they can take me in to try to arrest me. they were going to take me to the district, identify me, give me a misdemeanor third degree so i can agree to it and take a 30 or 60 day agreement that will get into anymore trouble and then charges go away. so we take me to the district and the captain of the district said, don't bring them in here. [laughter] and so now he's calling over the police radio, i've got this guy, man, i don't know what to do with them. so we take me to another police district and the captain said, don't bring him in your. [laughter] and so now i'm feeling a little better now. so we takes me to a police administration building, and he says, we're going to m3 him, so it takes me down the ramp and he got a phone call back from the chief inspector and the chief
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inspector said don't bring him in here. and at that point he said to me, i want to talk to you outside the car. so it takes me out of the car and he takes one comes off my wrist and says, i want to take the other one off but i don't want to upset my partner. now, what's going through my mind is duty taking out the car, do something to me or attempt to do something to me, and then he shoots me? by the way, i still have my gun. so in my mind set is, do i take both of these cops out? [laughter] or do i watch what's going on? the dancing bear. so i watch what's going on in the big picture. but now i'm focused on what are they going to to me? because in philadelphia we have a history at one time where cops would shoot you and you get shot and nobody cares. so he decided to put me back in
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the car with just one cuff, and take me to another district to release me. so he releases me. so i then started calling the mayor, the police commission and all the folks that you know, look, i don't want to see this ever happening to another black person, particularly a politician or a clergy person or someone in the community. so we are supposed to work out some agreement. the agreement didn't happen. so i filed a lawsuit -- by the way, the newspapers, then he said he was interfering with police. he was interfering with police. and when i was interviewed by the internal affairs, one of the internal affairs officers said to me, when you were in the police academy did you learn that you were a civilian and you had no business entering with police? danger in a very you didn't -- didn't you know you didn't interfere with police? i said respectfully captain, i'm
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not a civilian on a public official. there's a difference. so they found the police officer guilty of speaking to me with foul language. so i joined a lawsuit, and people said well, you shouldn't -- so i suited. i sued because -- [laughter] i sued because illegal search and seizure, but i had another part, industry terms. i had enough heart to lend my name to that lawsuit. because one of the reasons of search and seizure, which is a dangerous, it's even dangerous for the police officer, who is told to keep his numbers up, who's told to write a lot of tickets. i was there. i know the system. so i lend my name to the lawsuit, and we soon, and a part
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of a lawsuit in the city of philadelphia is that whenever you stop a person for illegal search and seizure, when it is not a person and you don't have probable cause, you have to write a report and most people don't want to write a report. so now it's a little better in the city of philadelphia because of the illegal search and seizure mandate that we have it but it still happens every day. happens across the country but it happens in your city, it happens in my city. the problem is one of the legislative, we do have legislators who will step up and use their hard. you have a powerful position to if you write the legislation, if you have the committee meetings on how to stop people from being discriminated, how to stop people from being treated unfair, then you've done your job. but if you sit on the sidelines
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and don't write legislation and don't get involved, and by the way, that legislator in the city of philadelphia, my counterparts, they didn't rally behind me at they didn't have a demonstration. they didn't sit down with the mayor of our city and say, he was one of ours. many years in the community, i took myself away from my family to support the community prior to becoming a police officer, prior to becoming achieve, prior to becoming a share for the city of philadelphia. and by the way, while the lawsuit was going i was running for sheriff. so, you know, what happened. i had police officers writing negative letters about me, sending blogs that i was a terrible guy, i was a terrible person. but i'm a human being. why should anybody be treated unfair?
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police officer stopped to elderly person, through them in the car, harassed them, and one man was a handicapped person, disabled person. and all i asked was, officer, is everything all right? now, the community understood because they said they didn't know who you were to the police officer who did that to me didn't care who i was. because i was dressed like trayvon martin. and it puts a bad name of other police officers who want to do the job. what i will say to you today, legislation laws that we could write, we could in some of these issues of discrimination, racial divide, how folks are treated. but i've got to say to you, last thing i would say is this, every day we transport five to six
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people everyday from the county jail to the jailhouse. we transport about 100 juveniles every day to juvenile court to the juvenile jail. i tried to dew tour's every day with young folks so they can see what the jail looks like. i don't have to do that. is it because the level of people i tried to show that somebody cares. but i still bothered by in pennsylvania 80%, 80% of the people who are in jail are african-american. i'm bothered by that. and it might be because the legislation and the law that we write. when a police officer to arrest the person and the district office -- district attorneys office charged, why do our people get charged with one of our charges and then we plead guilty to a felony charge, one
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of the felonies, and the rest of the 24 go away and you can have a job, a decent job for the rest of your life if you can't get a college loan. you can get a grant. sometimes you can't even get a credit card. and it is because of the law. and someway somehow this body of people has to find a way to write legislation that says that people should not be overly charged or have stack on charge. and if we don't do that, we are going to find more people, particularly people who are of low income come at last i checked, most of you are folks who are low income. we will have an opportunity to be treated fair, good jobs or anything like that. it is you who are legislators who need to write the law. if the law doesn't pass, you still write it. keep writing the laws. keep having the community
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meetings. keep having forums about legislation that will help people, particularly people of color. so, i'm in charge to say the lack of our participation as legislators are affecting the outcomes of our people in every city in every state. all police officers are not bad. all of our people are not bad, but we've got to find a way to help people without hurting them. thank you. [applause] >> all right. we're going to have a little discussion with our stellar panel, and, to talk about these critical issues. are their microphones over here? great, great, great.
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so let's start by talking about this question of implicit bias, because by the very nature of the implicit means it's not explicit, which means it's not necessarily manifest in traditional forms that we can point to and suggest that this is definitely wrong, or this is definitely biased, or this is definitely prejudiced. so want to start by asking how can anything be done, what can we substantively and practically do to address the question of implicit bias? because a large part of that struggle is this defensiveness on the part of people, and institution, that you claim house the implicit bias. to how do you effectively do so? you've got to point to it, then you've got to convince the people who are participating in
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a, even people of color for that matter, that they are perpetuating it, to recognize it before something then this done. so want to throw this out to the panel. i'll start with professor davies, perhaps, and then mr. harris, and then we'll get to the practical application of it with our two law enforcement folk, dr. keesee and sheriff williams. >> thank you. it's an important an excellent question because our conception, our traditional conventional perception of how race operates on us and affects our judgments and our decision-making is outmoded. we tend to think that we can see racism in the same way that we used to when it was operating under why should dashing white
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hooded, or white only signs on our walls, or something really explicit and overt. we can't see it that way anymore. it has been -- the good news is that we have progressed beyond that as a society. we still see it occasionally when people slip up unintentionally, but it's a lot less likely that we are going to see it in that fashion. now, that means that all of our standards in the judiciary are outmoded as well. because we still have in courts of law racial discrimination by asking for, in fact, insisting on evidence of intentional discrimination on the basis of race. and what this new emerging body of learning is showing us is that that is an outmoded understanding of the way in
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which race operates on people, even people of goodwill. and so we need to revisit and revise those important standards of proof in our judiciary. that's one. and the first step to doing that is raising public awareness that implicit bias actually exists. this is something that is not yet a part of normal everyday understanding. and so we have to do a lot of that work to begin with. we are doing it in our various capacity, mostly in targeted audiences because we have started with the audiences that we think are most important to learn that this exists. eventually we will have to introduce this to our entire nation. because we need a new contemporary, broader
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understanding of the way in which race operates on all of us. >> i would add, i agree with everything said. i would add to the, it gives us an opening though because historically trying to engage the conversation about race history difficult because white people get very defensive on just bringing up the topic. and i think what the opening that implicit bias and this research that has come forward gives us is we now know that discrimination happens on a level that's not intentional, happens on a level that is unconscious. and so because of that we are no longer saying, we no longer need to imply, and so, therefore, they no longer need to be defensive that they are bad people simply because discrimination has happened to we now understand discrimination happens based on processes in the mind that is beyond their
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control. although there has been some work done where preliminarily, where they have shown that if people are aware that have implicit bias and take steps to try to counter it, it can be controlled. so there is some good news about it, but sa stay on those two frs there is some encouraging news. one, it allows us to have a conversation about how discrimination really happens in this country, and that's a really important conversation that we have to have because as dr. dyson said at the beginning, people have not wanted to talk about that, and what have you raised the issue, they claim we were playing the race card. and i think in addition to that, the fact that there is now some research that shows that the are steps that can be taken to address it is very encouraging. >> and, of course, i agree with both fellow panelists. one of the things though that we had to do in denver the currently ongoing now is this
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recognition in education of what implicit bias is. they are almost in a sense what i would call many therapy sessions. because you cannot move forward in a conversation the you have not examined your place for your contribution to what has occurred. and a lot of folks are not ready for the. they're not ready for the conversation because the might of been things you've done historically, if you are mature, if you hadn't known, you would not have been picked to finish ththe acceptance around where nt trying to blame you for passed, although there's some who will, we have to move forward at the conversation. and i agree. not just on a policing perspective but we can have this conversation as a nation. and so we can't expect one segment or targeted group to do something if the broader society is unwilling. as far as we're concerned from the policing aspect of it, it is something that we are slowly being introduced to, i also found that it also gives some
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relief officers to know that that's not intentional, to know that the media, socialization, school, other institutions have a play and how we came to be. >> i would agree with the other panelists. the police and law enforcement has an insert a string mechanism which is required by law, and those programs are spoonfed, and i do mean spoonfed because of the culture of law enforcement. one of the problems we have is that you people have been on the job for 25, 30 years to bring the old culture into a new day, and that has -- we have to find a way to get that information out, and use those mindsets away from the old ways. and that's when you see the problems that we have. i don't think all police officers are bad, but there is a
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culture. there is an us against them. and then we didn't have the partnership and the committee working with community police, then you have a real up -- us against them. and that's what we want to try to stop. >> what we're going to do now is we have about 10 minutes of conversation with the legislators, and back and forth between the panelists and you. and so if you can step out into the aisle as you are doing. now, we can't filibuster. we cannot filibuster. we've got 10 minutes. that means we've got -- six people? all right, six legislative. we have seven, now. [inaudible] >> six hours? christians only. just joking.
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yes, question and the question is got to be 25 seconds. >> there was one issue that i did not hear discussed. sender pew from maryland, there was one issue that i didn't hear discussed and i just thought you might want to address it, and that is medicating our young people as they go through school. please. >> yes, ma'am. grade-point but does somebody want to take that? >> i'll stick to a very bravely. there are some colleagues in the office who are beginning to look at the question of how medication, particularly psychotropic drugs, are used to restrain young people and keep them under control. and this is a problem. i think that's what you're referring to. yes. and so this is an emerging problem that we are just starting to understand how broad it is. we know it's happening in foster care and child welfare system. we know it's also happening in some juvenile justice systems. but we really don't have a very
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good handle on how broad the dimensions are and what should be the response. so we are still trying to get our arms around that one, but we are looking at it spent 10 duncan from the great state of chicago. we are legislators. we are legislators that are effective in a respective districts. but sometimes when we are in committee, some of the committees that we even share, in the senate or the house, where every state is predominantly white legislators who control the final vote. you may of our house full of democrats in control. a house full of republicans, but whites tend to stick together when it comes to legislation that they deem is going to be directly beneficial to black folks, and the brown folks. so my question to you is, how do we try to legislate, change with his implicit bias and really
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help shift them from being on the defensive, on legislation that really the criminalizes a number of nonviolent offenses that come with mandatory sentencing, for example, quick so how do we deal with the? how do we talk to my own white counterparts who want to do the right thing, but they said no, we know certain people, certain populations are going to benefit directly from this. >> well, as a former legislator, i would negotiate during the time of budget. you know, when the other side of the aisle wants to get their monies or want to get some projects pass, then you should always have that list of things you want to get done. and that is the time in negotiating is on budget and. i think you used your opportunities to get what you want when the time, when they want what they want to and negotiation around budget time.
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spend what about the negroes? [laughter] >> there is a negro factor. speak on that. >> it does, it does. >> represented miller, memphis, tennessee. my questions on the same line as the last speaker. we talk about implicit, racism and/or bias, institutional and i think the first place we should look at it probably our federal government, the largest institution governmental institution, and some would say the most powerful institution, governmental institution in the world. but when you can have the majority leader of the united states senate could say after 2008 election, our purpose for the next four years is to defeat the president of the united states, i don't think that was simply said based on the difference in parties.
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however, the question is where to begin with try to change that mentality and attitude of bias? >> does anybody want to take that question? >> not being a legislator i do know that i have as much background as my buddy to my right. i would safely say that, there's two threads you can build on. one is the republicans, then republicans like they are, have come to the point of where they give lip service to endorsing civil rights movement, wanting racial equality, even honoring dr. martin luther king. and so i would say use that language that they're putting out there as a way to engage this conversation. and i would say hi to the second thread which is, we're not accusing you of being bad people. at least you can say that given. but you can allow them to engage
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in conversation on that if you like they are racist dogs, as it always has been in the past, because we know now the wait implicit bias plays out is not because of conscious toward the particular group of people but because the association that automatically happens in our brains. >> i'm choice and other, arkansas state senator in thank you so much for reminding us that we need to create this space to talk about. i really appreciate that. but in arkansas i'm working with the institute on race ethnicity and university of arkansas at little rock. one of the things we are considering and i'm considering doing in the next upcoming session is racial impact statement. for environmental and fiscal and everything else. and i just want to get your thoughts on whether or not you think that's an effective way to go to get to the issues, and if so, resources i should consider
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or ways to be effective in carrying out that kind of legislation? >> dr. keesee, do you want -- >> racial impact statements are known to be very beneficial, but the question you have to ask is what's your overall goal. because impact statements can have exactly the opposite effect where you're trying to open space for communication, conversation and you shut it down quickly. because typically statements are very emotional and very painful. and so i will give you my card but i would suggest that you do if you want to do that, that those are done in smaller settings and those are done with affected individual community and not as a statewide kind of thing. and that way you start planning that feed and they start to google and others will go. because you can easily shut it down with one impact statement, which half the room were related and the other half will shut down, too. >> kevin matthews from oklahoma.
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and my question is to ms. davies. in your studies about type one and type two, types of thinking and the way that we are influencing and, in fact, we have implicit bias, when we use the type to type of thinking and the rationale, as you research shown that actually makes a difference in the way people will act? ..
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thinking but a lot of thinking that we do we think of as racial that is actually quiteer rational. and it really depends on whether it a police officer. who is ebb gauged in particular police practice. for example, understanding the way the practice operates structurally and also that the officer may be susceptible to implicit bias and engaged in the practice. he might be thinking about that delivertively, but unless he really understands existence of implicit bias it may not stop the dis proportionatalty of policing in a neighborhood. i think it's important when we understand how structure mechanism operate to create disparity that we respond to those structure mechanisms with
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other structure mechanisms. so one example i have racial impact analysis could be a structure mechanism that at least shines a light and helps us collect the d.a. that times we don't bother to assess and begin with. i do think to institute structure mechanisms in response to others is a very important part of this. >> okay. thank you. >> yes, ma'am. >> i'm from memphis, tennessee, state representative. i want to commend you for an outstanding presentation this morning. [applause] i would strongly recommend that c-span play this repeatedly until everybody has seen it. [applause] it was outstanding. i'm a legislator, and i agree with the comment.
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ly agree with everything you've said. it's been most enlightening. i wish there have been more of my people because now the new enemy, and some sense is black african-american legislators who ak to the new leadership so they can get the precious bill passed by comprising their principles and our people. how can you? what recommendation would you give to -- [laughter] >> well, thank you so much. as a former member, as a former legislator it's politics is vocal and how you negotiate. i would sate organization is a spring board. and if you can ever get corporate round table to impact
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that person, the so-called unresponsive negro of 2012, if you can ever get their sponsors the people who finance that on board then you can make that person a better politician or legislator. >> thank you. [applause] i would like to stay the panel too. i'm state senator david haylee from kansas. thank you for your insight. as former county prosecutor, and this one who has been in the legislator for eight teen years, i have worked with barbara ballard, our president, senator -- and representative broad rick henderson all from kansas to try to ensure that racial profiling is banned. the games they have played the last dozen years to chip away time and again at the different parts -- first ban through it
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and go through -- this is my question. we uniform data collection at least as the corner stone or peace. it was said by the panel even when we get the data. the that shows the pretect yule are in fact not being recorded, why was that data on a national basis? how is not being able to bear down and understand where question find the bad apples? all right-hand turn -- aren't bad. why isn't that work nationally and not available so we can address racial profiling? >> one of the reasons multiple, actually. it depend on the data sets you're collecting. from a general statement, when you introduce to a police organization you're going to start collecting data on stops, then the negotiation begins. the union will step in and say, we're going to do?
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you can't identify the police officer, you can't say something that identifies the office. we'll agree to these under the circumstance. you have pieces of d.a. data missing. that's one of the reasons. terrorist not a general consensus on institute racial profiling. across the board it's different. the experiences are different. i don't think you need to narrow down to one deaf in -- definition and saying that it. it's sitting down and to get to the information you need what data do you need up front. typical historically what they will do to keep the peace in the house is say give you the following five things. you don't need to how long they've been on, the disciplinary history. that's stuff you want to know. there are ways to do it where the office remains enormous and
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turn it over and say so you a problem here and figure out how to go about it. a lot is about the data you're collecting and then who is doing it the analysis of the data. that's the other piece as well. because we're all complies it in saying there's nothing wrong. if there is, i have a problem, you have a problem. >> okay. thank you. >> thank you [inaudible] mine is a data cay as well. i was intrigued about how many years we've been collecting information on racial profile. in south carolina we thought we done something when we got bill passed only to have our state law enforcement division tell us there's no issue. how do we proceed on the notion of a national clearing house that would involve analysis? that all of us could use across the country to make sure that when we pass legislation, the effort to see all of it is something we can have and
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in-house analysis of. i'm intrigued of the national clearing house and speak about how we can go around getting it done. >> thank you. the cple is disagree -- intrigued. the first step you have to be able to identify, accept there's a problem. so that is a, to me, the infancy stage and something that has to be done not just with law enforcement but all the way around. with department of justice, as much power they have or don't have depending on if you smoke marijuana or not. i -- i digress. [laughter] a lot is what is large federal in place mechanisms willing to do to help broaden that conversation. because we can't collect anything if we are saying it's
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not happening. so you have two things on two fronts. once you have the individuals involved have to understand what we're talking about and understand we're not pointing fingers and things. the other part is there has to be a large support that said we want to get to the bottom of the answer and to do this, not just in your state but in colorado, would help us on the kind of national organizational conversation about race. and it's something we all share. i think threading us together that way would be helpful. one, i would say to answer your question. you have to have the conversation about what restart the start button. what are we trying to go here? we want to know is there racial profiling? in order to do that, we have to look at the new form of how that would come in to play and you have to do it with the law enforcement officials as well. we're going to be unwilling. they are going to be unwilling and resistant. i have to tell you within the police organizes there are people who are not.
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they understands what it means to have relationship with the community who will say, okay, it might be a small step. let's sit down and have the conversation. it's going take a lot of work, like most, i think it's going to take time. but i think it's possible. >> thank you. yes, sir? >> good afternoon holy mitchell i agree with the comments many have made about the challenges we face with legislators in a broader sense. but i think we also must recognize the power we possess. 600 plus african-american legislators and 42 states across the country. i recognize when i walk on the floor of the california asemibelie as a six foot tall black woman with dread locks. the bias is not nearly implicit, it's any my face. my presence changes the course of the was conversation. we have to recognize our power and make sure we are serving on the public safety committee and in the room at the table so we can have the power to change the
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dynamic of the conversation. we attempted to do that in california. one of my colleagues in the black caucus in the northern sector of the state created a select committee on men and boys of color. we have held hearings across the state opening them, inviting men and boys before color to come before the legislators primarily black and brown men to talk about their life experience. what occurred to me listening to the panel is i don't know that we have spent enough time with law enforcement at the same table being forced, if you will, to respond in real time to the reality of the lives of these men and boys of color. my question to the entire panel, are there other committees of this sort that you see another part of the country. >> i wouldn't say there are necessarily formal committees. we have seen them from the community level. they decided this is something that needs to be done. i agree with you in regards to having law enforcement on the
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table. i think there's reluctance about making the phone call. you don't know what is going to happen. and so for example, what we have done in denver is we call them listening tours. you bring in law enforcement, they're not in uniform, they're in civilian clothes, we have panels of young people who talk about their experiences, and one of the things and one of the instructions that i give to the officers is you're here to listen not defend. but to listen. and then when this is all said and done, you need to listen some more. it's not about defending someone's actions or do you understand, it's listening. for a lot of us, not police officers it's hard to do. you are already formulating your response to what you're saying or defensive. when you're bringing law enforcement to the table, for me, it works, you know, in most states not to turn it to 150 and have the officers sitting up here and get berated nap would shut anybody down.
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to get them to the communities and let listen to their experience. it might not have been you but your counter part the way they spoke to me. i think a lot of times we forget. we get caught up in what we are doing and wanting to go home. we don't think about it. sometimes the reality check is necessary. >> there is an organization called the national black priser association. they are a national group and partnered now with the organization of legislators. they just did an amendment to be a part of our working group. i would encourage you to contact national organization of black police officers because they are compiling this information. working on the data, they are working with states and cities who have filed lawsuits. and the other way to get the information is as a result of lawsuits that have been filed. discrimination lawsuits. that's a place you can start. it when you have national
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organizations who are willing to -- black police officers who are willing to step out on the front line to give you data and information, i would encourage you to communicate with them. >> all right. well, this has been an extraordinarily informative panel. and you see by the testimony, so to speak, of these experts that this is a vital and critical problem. we have to confront. and it has consequences on actually existing people. on flesh and blood folk most of whom are ours. whether black or latino or asian or indigenous people or the like. the real city that all of this intellectual and academic intense stuff we are talking about has application. that's no reason to dislodge the sen sen centrality of the
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academic -- the reality is the given what the panel has spoken about and professor davies in particular regard to the fast move paradigm introduced by daniel, and then, of course, professor -- mr. harris speaking about the fear and em a -- and doctor speaking about the way bias is distributed through practical application of law enforcement and sheriff williams speaking about being a victim of the very system that we're they theorizing here. that reminds us that that it is real sufficient. and the thing is, even if you go to the chemistry of bigotry, right, the nur are path way in the brain laid out. it depends upon social queues to
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stimulate the biological feedback loop. and to, you know, provoke the brain to certain responses. that stuff is still rooted in stuff over which we have control to the degree that we pointed out, we acknowledge it, and then we confront it. and we know how difficult it is to change and challenge our own biases. as black folk who are bap ties about gay people. that's another family. [applause] >> right. that's another fanal. but i'm asking you to do that to empathize with folk who got to confront their bias. right. i ain't never been to no black church and don't take no ties. they expoit to the very people they point to and target as useful recipient of the bigotry. so now you bring in -- justify
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and cosign you biased. same thing happens in racial hire i can. people bringing in it wasn't the fast stuff messed up. it was the slow stuff that got us screwed up. the philosophical predicate for the extension of white supreme as an ideal to dpoasht -- negotiate the tensions in civil and social culture. as professor daveys pointed to. it's so thought it was infused with tremendous bias. it perpetuated a legacy of equity. we have to figure out a ways which we can challenge that from within and as mr. harris reminded us. we're not trying to tell white folk you're the bad, horrible, but it's interesting to me that a society teaching us to be responsible don't want to be
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responsible. right. pull yourself up by your boot strap. face yourself in the mirror and confront your limitation. yes, when we point and say can we share that? all of a sudden, you people never can be satisfied. never can be, you know, resolved in your own minds about this. yet, when we point to a more scientific, if you will, more critically analytical framework that allows us to talk about bias and frees us from finger pointing but engages us say that all of us have to confront our bias and are we willing to do so around our young people? that's why i said about the pants sagging. some of us have perpetuating legacy within our own household and cultural. look at corporal punishment for black folk. another tight issue. all of us don't practice it, probably. look at the long-term effect.
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black people say it ain't hurting me. the jury is still out. lflt [applause] [laughter] i ain't no law enforcement person. but the jury is out. the reason we work more invested in corporal punishment. we want to control our kid. right. let's not act like we don't know why, at the same time how about adaptive personality? how about adaptive trait and evolution of thinking for new times so we can fit the situation? we don't have no timeout. we have knockout. you not knockouted and woke back up. that's timeout. facing the wall was beautiful. [laughter] that was nonviolent intersex. in behalf of black practices domestically. we have to face this stuff. it has lethal consequences our kids. not graduated and shunted. and kicking our kids out.
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so you a whole generation look at the rappers who speak about it. teachers couldn't reach me and my momma couldn't beat me hard enough to -- membrane got on my pimp game. that's a jay z nur are biological analysis of the prevailing community where teachers and parents have had a very tangible impact on the human being and what that might mean. we all know that this stuff has a tremendous impact not a dropout. he doesn't graduate from college. jay z. himself barely. tupak not a high school graduate but he was a gene use. education is not schooling. schooling is the institute to matrix institutional matrix that
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learns and distribute it is culturally. offensively based an learn -- learning is something you have for a lifetime. that's what you do whether you figure out your life situation and figure out what to do in regard how you don't nurture and grow your mind over the space of a lifetime. we have the institutions that are making judgment about our children and we are complies it in without stepping up to the plate to intervene. i'm glad you are doing that with knowledge, insight, with slavery i have, and critical given to you over a lifetime. we have to use it in behalf to our children so they won't be sendoff. one person gets hit on the back of the hand and told not do it anymore drunk until a certain age and go on to be president. and another person gets confined to being a janitor. both got the same tal let.
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if president obama had been caught doing stuff he was doing that he said in the own auto biography that he said did. he won't have been the president and the victim of implicit, explicit he's a study all of the simultaneously. that's right with him. right. [applause] [laughter] too black, not black enough. right. too much swag not enough courage. erg you everything lit us in test you can engage. the tragedy is that the man who wrote one of the most brilliant books on race has been muzzled in the white house of the fear of a dominant culture of a black president or a president who happens to be black and the knowledge that he could impart. it's like having michael jordan in the white house and can't talk about basketball.
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that ain't what i'm supposed to do. i want to thank the panel for the brilliance and insight. i want to thank you all. [applause] [applause] today senate armed service committee hold two hearings. first at 9:30 a.m. eastern. military leaders testify about the potential impact of budget cuts scheduled to take effect on march 1st. see it live on c-span3. the committee needs to vote on the nomination of former senator chuck hagel to be the next secretary of defense. live coverage our on companion networking c-span3. having observed a steady opportunity, i can report you that the state of this old but youthful union is good. >> ones again in keeping with
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time on a tradition. i have come to report to you on the state of the union. i'm pleased to report that america is much improved. and there's good reason to believe that improvement will continue through the days ahead. [applause] >> my duty tonight to report on the state of the union. not the state of our government. but of our american community. and as set forth, our responsibility in the words of our founders perform a more perfect union. the state of the union is strong. >> as we gather tonight, ournati nation is in war. our economy is in recession, and the civilized world faces unprecedentedac dangers. yet the state of the union has, never been stronger. >> it's because of our people that our future is hopeful, our journey goes forward. of our union is
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strong. >> tonight president obama delivers this year's addressour live on c-span. remns with our preview program starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern and the president at 9:00 followed by the g.o.p. response and your reaction.e the state of the union tonight on c-span, c-span radio, and c-span.org. >> and i quoted ladybird the first lady has a podium. she choose to use it. i think that was her quote. i think really knowing that, it was after i made the address about three minute women and children in afghanistan by the taliban. and right after that i was here in austin visiting jenna at texas. we went shopping and the ladies -- who worked at cosmetic counter came up and said thank you for speaking for women in
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afghanistan. and i think i knew intepght julie that the first lady had a podium. i didn't really know it until after that. >> c-span new series plateds influence and image. the first of the kind project for television. examining the public and private lives of the women who served as first ladies. season one begins next monday. president's day at 9:00 p.m. eastern and pacific. on c-span, c is c-span radio, and c-span.org. next at the discussion on the u.s. and european economies. panelists discuss factors contributing to a weak u.s. economic recovery. unemployment, and federal reserve monetary policy. a representative from germany looked a the eurozone financial crisis. major challenges the european economy as well as the impact of environmental and industrial
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full employment and process perty. it's ninety minutes. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] i want to continue eating your lunches. we'll get started this afternoon. i hope you all enjoyed the first two panels of the conference. and i want to thank and congratulate the speakers for their thoughtful and important policy presentations earlier today. it's time to hear from our two lunchtime keynote speakers. this is something that i've been looking forward to greatly.
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who the minister of economy or the german federal state. i want to welcome both of you to the afl-cio i truly want to thank both of you for coming to speak at this con for fence. your conty biewtions are -- contributions are greatly anticipated. the plan of action we first hear from dr. yellen, after they finished we'll open up the floor for half an hour. of the federal reserve in october of 2010. prior to that, she served as president and chief executive
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officer of the federal reserve bank of san francisco. from 1997 to 1999, dr. yellen served as chair of the council of economic advisers. she's president meredith at the university of california at berkeley. and she was the eugene e and katherine m. professor of business. and the american academy of art and sciences. matthias machnig has served as
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-- since 2009. he's a member of the german social democratic party. the spd, and serves as party's key strategies of the future of the german economy with special interests in strategies for green growth and a third industrial revolution. prior to his position, he was state secretary in the german central ministry of the environment of natural conservation and nature conservation and nuclear safety. he served as state secretary in the german federal ministry of transportation, construction and housing. matthias machnig is a key economic adviser to spd chairman gabriel and candidate for chancellor piers. let me welcome both of you again.
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dr. yellen, turn the stage other to you. thank you. [applause] thank you, rich. and thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today about the federal reserve's efforts to strengthen the recovery and pursue a goal with the labor movement, maximum employment. as an objective of public policy, maximum employment doesn't appear in the u.s. constitution in any presidential decree or even in the mission statement of the labor department. the law passed in 1964 made it a general goal for the u.s. government but so far the federal reserve is the only agency -- in pursuing mix max
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moment employment. it assigned the goal of stable prices. we called this combination of objectives the federal reserve's dual mandate. with so many people today unable to find work. it might be seem odd to highlight such an ambitious and distant goal for employment. i do so because the gulf between maximum employment and the difficult conditions workers face today, helps explain the urgency behind the federal reserves ongoing efforts to strengthen the recovery. my colleagues and i are acutely aware of how much workers have lost in the past five years. in response, we have taken and are continuing to take forceful action to increase the economic growth and job creation.
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in the three years after the great recession ended, growth and real domestic -- real gdp averaged only 2.2% per year. in the same span of time following the previous tenuous recessions, real gdp grew on average more than twice as fast at the 4.6% annual rate. so why is the economy's recovery from the great recession been so weak? the slow recovery, was proceeded, of course, since the deepest recession since the end of the second world war. the bursted unprecedented housing bubble, together with the financial crisis that followed dealt a huge below -- blow to demand. they robbed homeowners well
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built over a generation, impaired their access to credit, decimated retirement savings, and shattered the confidence of consumers. businesses slashed capital spending and payrolls, and real gdp contracted by 4.7%. more than twice the average for the recession since world war ii. the great recession was also the longest post war recession. it last the eighteen months compared with an average of ten months for the others. the experience of the united and other advanced economies suggests that deeper recessions are usually followed by stronger than average recoveries. it's also true that longer recessions tend to result in weaker recoveries, even after accounting for this factor, this rover i are has been
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significantly weaker than past experience would predicted. the dashed line in this exhibit shows how real gdp would have been expected to increase in this recovery based on the experience of the united states and other advanced economies, and given the depth and duration of the great recession. the gap between the actual and the predicted path of real output gives a sense of how much economic performance is -- in the recovery. but the implications of this result may seem a little abstract. so let me illustrate the same idea in a way that tries to show the burden that workers continue to bear in this slow recovery. this exhibit shows how employment is declined and recovered following several
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previous recessions. the employment measure attempts to control for the fact demographic changes and other factors have altered the trend or potential work force over the years. for example, in the 1970s the pool of potential workers was expanding as baby boomers and an increasing share of women moved to the labor force. such that employment needed to rise relatively quickly just to ab sort these additional workers. more repeatedly, the aging of the population put downward pressure onley boar force participation. employment has had to grow as quickly to keep pace with a potential work force. even after making this adjustment, though, the great recession stands out both for the magnitude of the job losses
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that the town turn and weak recovery in employment occurred after the recession ended. in trying to account for why this recovery has been so weak, it's helpful to first consider several important factors that have in the past supported most economic recoveries. by this i don't mean everything that contributes to economic growth. but rather those things that typically play a key role in the u.s. economy is recovering from recession. think of these as tail winds, they usually promote a recovery. the first tail wind i'll mention is fiscal policy. history shows that fiscal policy often helps to support an economic recovery. some of this fiscal stimulus is intended to be. the income loss that individuals
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and businesses suffer in a recession is partly offset when the tax bills fall as well. government spending on unemployment benefits and other safety net programs rises in recessions, helping individuals hurt by the downturn and also supporting consumer spending and the economy by replacing lost income. these automatic decline in tax collections and increases in government spending are often supplemented with discretionary fiscal action. tax rate cuts, spending on infrastructure and other goods and services, and extended unemployment benefits. these discretionary fiscal policy actions are typically a plus for growth in the years just after a recession. for example, following the severe 1981,/'82 we session.
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discretionary fiscal policy contributed an average of one percentage point per year to real gdp growth over the subsequent three years. however, discretionary fiscal policy hasn't been much of a tail wind during this recovery. in the year following the end of the recession, discretionary fiscal policy at the federal, state, and local levels boosted growth at roughly the same pace as in past recoveries. as this slide indicates. but instead of contributing to growth thereafter, discretionary fiscal policy this time actually acted to restrain the recovery. state and local governments were cutting spending, and in some cases raises taxes for much of the period to deal with revenue
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shortfalls. .. absent action by the congress and the president, likely would've been a headwind strong enough to both the united states back into recession. negotiations continue over the expansive spending cuts now due to take effect beginning in
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march. and i expect the discretionary fiscal policy will continue to be a hit with the recovery for some time, instead of the tailwind in the past. a second tailwind and most recoveries is housing. residential investment creates job in construction and related industries. before the great recession, housing investment added an average of a half percentage point to real gdp growth in the two years after each of the previous four recessions. that's considerably more than its contribution to growth at other times. during this recovery in contrast, residential investment on net has contributed very little to growth, since the recession ended. is easy-to-understand given the
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central role that housing played in the great recession. allah wing and expensive boom in construction, served in large part by overly loose mortgage lending standards and unrealistic expectations for future home price increases, the housing market collapsed. sales and prices plunged and mortgage credit sharply curtailed. type mortgage credit conditions are continuing to make it difficult for many families to buy homes, despite record low mortgage interest rates that have helped make housing very affordable. i'm encouraged by recent improvement in the residential sector, but the contribution of housing investments overall economic activities remains considerably below the average seen in past recoveries as this exhibit shows.
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beyond the direct effects on residentiaandresidential investe extraordinary collapse in house prices resulted in a huge loss in household wealth. at last count net household equity is still than 40%, or about $5 trillion from 2005. this loss of wealth has weighed on the finance spending of many homeowners. households are less able to tap their home equity to deal with economic shocks, fund their children's education, or start new businesses. for some households, the collapse in house prices has left them underwater in the mortgages and thus unable to refinance or sell their homes. another important tailwind in most economic recoveries is one that tends to be taken for granted. that's to say most of us have based on history and personal experience, that recessions are
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temporary and the economy will soon get back to normal. even during recessions, households expectation for income growth tend to be reasonably stable. which provide support for overall spending. in the most recent recession, however, surveys suggest that consumers sharply revise down the prospects for future income growth, and have only partially adjusted up their expectations since then. the recovery is also encounter some unusual headwind. the fiscal and financial crisis in europe has resulted in euro area recession, and contributed to slower global growth. europe's difficulties blunted what had been strong growth in u.s. exports earlier in the recovery. by sapping demand worldwide. let me say a few words now, and
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more later, about the role of monetary policy in this recovery. the federal reserve typically plays a large role in promoting recovery by reducing the federal fund rate and keeping it low until the economy is again on solid footing. reducing the rate tends to reduce other interest rates and boost asset prices, both encourage spending and investment throughout the economy. as it has before, the federal open market committee in 2007 started reducing the federal funds rate at the first signs of economic weakness your it's a chopper rate cut since the recession deepened. has been some past recoveries, it was disappointingly slow. the fomc has kept rates low while after the end of the recession. but unlike the past, by
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december 2008, the committee has reduced the federal funds rate effectively zero. because that rate for practical purposes cannot be cut further, this level is referred to as the effect of lower bound. without the option of using its conventional policy tool, and with the recession getting worse, the fomc decided to employ unconventional tools to further eu's monetary policy, even though the efficacy of these tools was uncertain and it was recognized that their use might carry some potential cost. the better known of these tools is the purchase of large amounts of longer-term government security, what is commonly referred to as quantitative easing. the other in conventional tool is not as forward guidance, providing information about the future path of short-term
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interest rates anticipated by the committee. both of these approaches are intended to address a gap caused by the effective lower bound. this gap is the shortfall between what the fomc likely would do in current economic circumstances, were it able to reduce the federal funds rate below zero the reality that the rate can't be cut further. i believe the federal reserve's asset purchases and other unconventional policy actions have helped, and are continuing to help fill this gap and to sure up -- short of aggregate demand the evidence just the fomc's actions to lower short and longer term borrowed rates and boost asset prices. howeverprices. however, while this contribution has been significant, lower interest rates may be doing less to increase spending and the
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past recovery because of some unusual features of the great recession and the current recovery. for example, as i noted, the housing crisis left many homeowners with high loan-to-value ratios, and damaged credit records, creating barriers to access to credit. while the financial crisis led many banks to lend mostly to borrowers with high at -- with higher credit scores. as a consequence, the proportion of households has been able to take advantage of declining rates to refinance their mortgages or to borrow to purchase new homes is probably been lower than in past recoveries. in addition, pronounced uncertainty about economic conditions is way down capital spend decisions and may have -- lower interest rates on business
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investments. these are the major reasons why i believe this recovery has been so slow. after a lengthy recession that impose great hardships on american workers, the weak recovery has made the past five years the toughest that many of today's workers have ever experienced. the unemployment rate now stands at 7.9%. to put this number into perspective, profit is an improvement from the 10% rate reached in late 2009, it's now higher than unemployment ever got in the 24 years before the great recession. moreover, the government's current estimate of 12 million unemployed doesn't include 800,000 discouraged workers who say they have given up looking for work. and as this slide shows,
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8 million people, or 5.6% of the workforce, say they are working part-time, even though they would prefer a full-time job. a broader measure of underemployment that includes these and other potential workers stands at 14.4%. the effects of the recession and the subsequent slow recovery have been harshest on some of the most vulnerable americans. the poverty rate has risen sharply since the onset of the recession, after a decade in which it had been relatively stable. and it stands at 50% of the population. significantly above the average of the past three decades. even those today who are fortunate enough to hold jobs have seen the hourly compensation barely keep pace with the cost of living over the past three years.
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while labor's share of income as measured by the percent of production by nonfinancial corporation, accruing to workers as compensation, remains near the postwar low reached in 2011. compared with the 7.9% unemployment rate for all workers, the on the planet rate for after the americans is 13.8%. the unemployment rate for those without a high school diploma is 12%. for young people, 16-19 years old, the unemployment rate is 23.4%, little changed from the end of the recession. and among african-americans in that age group, 38% of those in the labor force can't find a job. another gauge of the effect of the slow recovery is had on
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workers is how long it's taking to find a job. at its worst point in the 1980s, the medium length of unemployment for those working for job was 12 weeks. but the median since the great recession is averaged 20 weeks and now stands at 16 weeks. 3 million americans have been looking for work for one year or more. that's a fourth of all unemployed workers, which is down from 2011 peak, but far larger than we have seen it before the great recession. these are not just statistics. we know about long-term unemployment is devastating to workers and their families. longer spells of unemployment raised the risk of homeless, homelessness, and have been a factor contributing to the foreclosure crisis. when you are unemployed for six month or a year, it's hard to qualify, so even the option of
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relocating to find a job is often off the table. the toll is simply terrible on the physical and mental health of workers, on their marriages, and on their children. long-term unemployment is also a great concern because it has the potential to itself become a headwind restraining the economy. individuals out of work for an extended period can become less employable as they lose the specific skills acquired in their previous jobs, and also the habits needed to hold down any job your those out of work for a long time also tend to lose touch with former coworkers in their previous industry or occupation. context it can often open unemployed worker find a job here long-term unemployment can make any worker progressively less employable, even after the economy has strengthened. a factor contributing to the
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high level of long-term unemployment in the current recovery is the relatively large proportion of workers who have permanent loss the previous jobs as opposed to being laid off temporarily. in general, individuals who permanently lose their previous jobs take longer to become reemployed than do those on temporary layoffs. they are more likely to have to change industries or occupations to find a new job, and they aren't significantly less when they become reemployed. the greater amount of permanent job loss in the recent recession also suggests that there might have been an increase in the degree of mismatch between the skills possessed by the unemployed and those demanded by employers. this possibility, and the unprecedented level and persistence of long-term unemployment in this recovery,
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have prompted some to ask whether a significant share of unemployment since the recession is due to structural problems in labor markets, and not simply a shortfall in aggregate demand. this question is important for anyone committed to the goal of maximum employment because it implicitly asks whether it's the best we can hope for even in a healthy economy is in unemployed raise significant higher than what has been in the past. this question is recorded discussed in the fomc. i cannot speak to the committee or my colleagues, some of whom have public league related their own conclusions on this topic. but i see the evidence is consistent with the view that the increase in unemployment since the onset of the great recession has been largely
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cyclical and not structural. for example, the rise in unemployment during the recession was accompanied by dramatic decline in job vacancies. and was widespread across industry and occupation groups. job losses in the construction and financial services industry were particularly large. that's hardly surprising given the collapse in the sectors in 2008 and nine. but manufacturing and other cyclically sensitive industries were hit hard as well, and employment in these industries is likewise recovered slowly. moreover, it's still a mismatch in the labor market has led to an excess supply of workers in some sectors, and a shortage of workers and others then we would expect to see in a typical amounts of variation in the balance between job openings and
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unemployment across sectors. based on this insight, and lazier and gym sluts are constructive quantitative measures of mismatch across industry and occupation. they are shown in this slide. they found a mismatch and disease was indeed elevated at the end of the great recession. but these measures have followed over the course of the recovery to near pre-recession levels. in addition, widespread mismatch between job vacancies and workers across different sectors might be expected to cause wage rates to rise relatively quickly in sectors with many job openings and relatively slowly in sectors with an excess of the plot of available workers. but work by jesse rothstein failed to uncover evidence of such a pattern.
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this and related research suggests to me first that a broad-based cyclical shortage of demand is the main cause of today's elevated unemployment rate, and second, that whatever problems there may be a day with labor market functioning are likely to be substantially resolve as the broader economy improves and bolsters the demand for labor. i don't mean to suggest that there are not some workers have been stranded by structural changes in the economy. more can and should be done to help dislocated workers acquire new skills. to transition from industries and occupations through opportunities. but making this transition will be much easier and a healthy economy, which is one reason why i'm encouraged by the evidence that elevated unemployment is indeed largely cyclical.
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i'd like to next describe what the federal reserve is doing to try to raise demand and create jobs. i describe it to unconventional policy tools that the fomc has employed since it reduced the targets are funds rate in 2008 to its effective lower bound. the first is large-scale assets purchases intended to lower longer-term interest rates, to encourage borrowing for spending and investment. between 2008 and mid-2011, the fomc purchased agency guarantees, mortgage-backed securities, agency debt, and treasury securities totaling $2.3 trillion. in 2011, the fomc began a maturity extension program under which it redud

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